The Deaf Way II Anthology: A Literary Collection by Deaf and Hard of Hearing Writers

Introduction

ix Introduction JOHN KITTO, who was deafened by a fall at the age of twelve, wrote in his 1848 autobiography, The Lost Senses, that “the nature of my affliction [deafness] unfitted me for any other sphere of usefulness than that of literature” (218).1 Kitto explains that he made the decision to write because it was something he could do alone, without having to communicate in the frustrating world of hearing people. However, he points out that deaf writers have special difficulties because the profession “involves, or should involve, intimacy with men of similar pursuits” (219). Kitto had no fellow deaf writers with whom to form a community of peers. He had hearing literary friends but, not surprisingly, found communication with them limited and difficult. It is easier today for a deaf writer to find peers; many more people are writing than are included in this anthology. The writers represented here submitted their work for the cultural arts festival of Deaf Way II in July 2002. This international festival, hosted by Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., provided a rare opportunity for deaf writers to discuss their art. It might seem unsurprising to include literary arts in a cultural festival, but, in the deaf world, the visual arts—including signed language performances—are central to cultural identity whereas the written ones are not. “Deaf writer” still seems something of an oddity in the deaf community. Writing, after all, is produced in the language of schools of the oppressive hearing culture. Deaf people, not being able to hear, do not acquire language through listening. The only real way for deaf people to acquire and build on the language knowledge necessary for reading and writing is through the 1. John Kitto, “The Lost Senses,” in Angels and Outcasts: An Anthology of Deaf Characters in Literature, 3d ed., ed. Trent Batson and Eugene Bergman (Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 1985), 209–60. Gallaudet Book 5/1/02, 9:55 AM 9 x Introduction written word. Deaf children cannot overhear a new word while waiting in line at the grocery store or in parents’ incidental conversations . On the other hand, the deaf community has an important written element to its culture—newspapers. Printing is one of the trades for which deaf students trained in school, and that helped create a rich tradition of newspapers produced by and for members of the deaf community. That, of course, means many deaf people were writing articles and columns. Yet somehow this has not translated into an awareness of deaf people as writers, not even in the deaf community. In my job as a professor in the Gallaudet University English department, I have had students insist to me that they could not possibly be expected to use English well because they were deaf. Therefore, one important reason to publish this collection is to raise awareness in both the deaf and hearing communities that deaf people do write. Another is to show how deaf writers portray deaf characters and deaf experiences. I was always a voracious reader. After I became deaf when I was ten, I became very aware of how rarely I ran into deaf characters. They were so few that I remember each one: Mr. Singer in Carson McCullers’ The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter; Albert and Ellie in Eudora Welty’s “The Key”; Donald in Shel Silverstein’s “Deaf Donald”; and Will Barrett (hard of hearing) in Walker Percy’s The Last Gentleman and The Second Coming. The only deaf writer I read (or knew about) was Helen Keller. Finally I decided to go looking for deaf writers on my own. I knew there had to be some. I started with autobiographies and memoirs, since that is what I found: Bernard Bragg’s Lessons in Laughter, Henry Kisor’s What’s That Pig Outdoors and Leo Jacobs’s A Deaf Adult Speaks Out were the first three I read. There were many differences in the three—especially Kisor from Bragg and Jacobs because Kisor is not a member of the deaf community while the other two are—but with all three I found myself identifying Gallaudet Book 5/1/02, 9:55 AM 10 Introduction xi strongly with their experiences. Even when their experiences differed from mine I felt connected because the descriptions of their experiences as deaf people rang true. When I finally found deaf writers who wrote poetry, drama, or fiction...